Long ago in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the army of the Kauravas and the army of the Pandavas faced each other to fight until total destruction of one army or both. The Kaurava clan including the mighty generals Bhishma and Drona formed the mainstay of Kaurava army. The Panchala army including King Drupada, his two inheritors Amba and Dhrishtadyumna, and his champions Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja formed the backbone of the Pandava army led by Arjuna and his brothers.
Revelation
On the eve of the war, when leaders of both armies gathered in their respective camps, Bhishma declared that he would do his best to exterminate the Pandava upstarts and Drona declared to do everything he can to annihilate the Panchala army. Bhishma was selected to be the general of the Kauravas. At the other camp Arjuna and his brothers divided the army into multiple groups and selected a general each for every group with Dhrishtadyumna as the undeclared de facto general.
Amba, though a mightier warrior than her brother, declared her one goal to fell Bhishma. At the same time Bhishma told the leaders of his army that he would not fight Shikhandi, as he came to deduce from the news that his spies brought that Shikhandi is Amba, a woman. He said a warrior should never fight a woman, a child, an old man or a cripple. Thus on the eve of the war Amba's identity was revealed, but she paid no heed. Only inches away from her goal she was beyond caring for the future.
The war against Bhishma
Next morning the war began. Each of greatest warriors on each side engaged another warrior of his stature from the opposing camp. In this way Amba, the only woman warrior, engaged Drona's son Ashwatthama. Neither could prevail over the other, and they both retired bleeding as the day ended. For next six days Bhishma continued to keep his pledge of exterminating the Pandava army.
On the seventh day of the war Amba managed to engage Bhishma for the first time. Amba attacked Bhishma with all her might, but even in his insistence upon not fighting a woman Bhishma could repel her attacks fine. When other warriors, not bound by the same code, joined Bhishma, she had to withdraw with deep regret. Bishma continued to kill.
On the night of the ninth day of the war, the Pandava brothers went to meet Bhishma in secret to ask for his blessing. Bhishma laughed and told them that at this old age he doesn't want to fight anymore, but he was bound by his warrior's code. He suggested Pandavas to attack him in a formation that puts Amba in the front and Arjuna in the back to fell him. The next day Amba and Arjuna does exactly that. When Ashwatthama came forward in Bhishma's aid, he was thwarted by a ferocious attack from Dhrishtadyumna.
Bhishma felled, severely injured and crippled, and Drona took over as the general of the Kauravas.
The war against Drona
With Bhishma effectively gone from the scene, Drona set out on tactics that did not correspond exactly with the warrior's code. Together with son and other warriors including Jayadratha, he ganged up against Arjuna's son the child warrior Abhimanyu and killed him. When a grief stricken Arjuna vowed to kill Jayadratha to avenge his son or die himself, Drona tried to keep Jayadratha away from the battlefield, expecting Arjuna to die to keep his oath. Jayadratha was killed by Arjuna anyways. Drona at same time killed Drupada, the King of Panchala.
Krishna, a friend of both Draupadi, princess of Panchala, and Arjuna, the finest warrior prince of the Pandavas, advised the Pandavas to slay Drona by any means even if the means was a little outside the code. On the fifteenth day of the war false news of Ashwatthama's death was spread, and the news was carried to Drona by the eldest of Pandava brothers. A grief stricken Drona threw his weapons away to break down in tears. Dhrishtadyumna, who was trained from an early age to kill Drona, jumped on him and cut him into two.
The war continued for three more days, and both armies were massacred leaving only a few dozen alive.
End of Amba
On the eighteenth day of the war the Padavas finally came victorious over the Kauravas, and they went to their camp to lick their wounds and celebrate. At the same time, the last handful of Kauravas were gathered by Ashawatthama, who hatched the plan to kill the remaining Pandava warriors in their sleep. Everyone protested first against this devious plan, but Ashawatthama managed to convince them. Thus he became the general for the last night.
Ashwatthama, along with two other warriors, crept into the Pandava camp past midnight and started to slaughter them in their sleep. He killed all of the remaining Panchala people including Amba, Dhrishtadyumna, Yudamanyu and Uttamauja - exactly in that order. Both Amba and Dhirshtadyumna died happy as they had their vengeance fulfilled.
Unknown to all, a Gandharva named Sthunakarna,was freed from the command of his leader, Kubera through Amba's death. He left the Panchala palace to join other Gandharvas after all these years.
~The End~
